AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s “Syphilis Tsunami” outdoor advertising campaign references the world-renowned landscape print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Katsushika Hokusai to draw attention to dramatically rising rates of syphilis across the country. In April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted an estimated 33% increase of infectious syphilis cases from 2014-2016. The national response needed to this growing public health crisis is made even more urgent by the fact that Pfizer, the manufacturer of Bicillin L-A, the preferred medication used to treat syphilis, has refused to meet the medical demand through constant drug shortages and multiple stockouts of the treatment over the past year, as widely reported by news organizations and health agencies.As a follow up to AHF’s groundbreaking “Syphilis Explosion” outdoor advertising campaign, the “Syphilis Tsunami” billboards will first appear in Los Angeles and will be complemented by a digital media campaign to draw attention to the national syphilis epidemic and to put pressure on Pfizer to supply Bicillin L-A in quantities that meets the growing demand for treatment.

(And the moral of the story is that if you are an artist and you don’t want people to do this to your stuff, then you should never die. That way, the 100-year waiting period (that I suppose is what applies in this case) won’t start and your art will never enter, how shall we say, the pubic domain.)

Going for the gold: What can we learn from Boston’s flirtation with Olympic glory? It’s a logical question given the millions of dollars and countless hours that business leaders invested in the ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of the 2024 Olympics. This time, it’s the foes doing the asking. No Boston Olympics cofounder Chris Dempsey and Smith College economist Andrew Zimbalist wrote a book about Boston’s experience, also titled “No Boston Olympics,” with a launch event planned for April 28.

One warning Dempsey hopes Paris and Los Angeles can heed as they vie for the 2024 Games: the problems inherent in the “boosters’ dilemma.” Certain elements of a bid that can be good for the host community, such as taxpayer protections, can also hurt that city’s prospects with the IOC. There’s also a broader lesson, one that extends far beyond Olympics debates. For major urban projects, a broad consensus should be sought early on. The entire city should be invited to the table, not just those with seats because of their connections.

SB 1465, as amended, De León. Public contracts: 2024 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Existing law provides specified requirements in awarding certain public contracts. This bill would authorize the Governor to sign agreements with the International Olympic and Paralympic Committee, as part of the site selection process for the City of Los Angeles to become the host for the 2024 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations that, among other things, the endorsing municipality, as defined, has developed a self-sufficient bid for financing the games. This bill would authorize the Governor to enter into an agreement for the state to be jointly liable, not to exceed a specified amount, with the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (OCOG), as specified, for obligations of the OCOG, and for any financial deficit relating to the games, as provided.

So basically, this means that the State of California will pay for part of the inevitable overages of a possible 2024 Los Angeles Olympics up to a total of a quarter billion dollars.

But if LA’s bid is “self-sufficient,” then why does LA or the corrupt International Olympic committee need any of our money at all, one wonders.

Hey, instead of paying for failure, why not tax it instead? So, of course Los Angeles “expects” to make billions, somehow, from LA2024, but in case it doesn’t, in case it starts to spend Precious Taxpayer Money garnered from The People of Los Angeles, then the govt of LA should pay a tax to the CA General Fund at, say, a 40% rate. So, fine, LA, spend an extra billion on your IOC party, but then, come 2025, you’ll owe CA a cool $400,000,000.

Wouldn’t that incentivize Los Angeles to be more honest about what it expects to make from LA 2024?

And man, we just went through this deal here in SF last year. I’ll tell you, SF came in third in the race to be the U.S nominee for the games of the 2024 Olympiad. (We beat DC, but DC never had a chance.) It looked like this:

Boston of course, said no way, Jose, we not going to enter into “joinder” with the IOC. And here comes LA, which is now considering putting itself on the hook for, potentially, billions.

I mean, if you’re worried about your teen getting drunk, again, and crashing the family car, again, why would you declare your teenager sober and then say, “Well, if you crash the car, I’ll give you a nice reward.” Would that make sense?

All our pols should oppose this Los Angeles bail out bill.

Reader Notes:

Oh hey, IRL, Paris will host the 2024 Olympics (in part because Paris doesn’t have no FBI, I’m srsly) so this bill doesn’t matter anyway.

And also, bay area officialdom doesn’t support the Olympics coming to SoCal in 2024, because that would kill ANY chance of SF / Bay Area hosting the now-coveted 2028 Olympics, I’m srsly. (But would SFGov et al actually come out to oppose this ridiculous spending bill? IDK. Perhaps they’ll oppose this bill, but in a sneaky way, who knows…)

We would circle and we’d circle and we’d circle to stop and consider and centered on the pavement stacked up all the trucks jacked up and our wheels in slush and orange crush in pocket and all this here county, hell, any county, it’s just like heaven here, and I was remembering and I was just in a different county and all then this whirlybird that I headed for I had my goggles pulled off; I knew it all, I knew every back road and every truck stop…

What our Local Host Committee might not have told you, NFL, is that Things Are Different Here, say compared with Atlanta, New Orleans, Orlando and all those other places filled with people who actually want you to come visit every seven years.

Sorry.

To make my point, let’s head on over to the Golden Gate Park Panhandle to check out this plaque celebrating General Motors (GM, actually Old GM, the one we had before the big bankruptcy):

You see, back in the 1990’s, GM just gave us the low six figures it took to put in the beloved Panhandle Playground and all it asked in return was this wooden plaque. It’s says “WELCOME TO KID’S KINGDOM – DONATED BY YOUR LOCAL SATURN* DEALER.” Or at least it used to say that. But the corporate part got chiseled away, by angry hippies.

Sorry, GM.

Do you really want to come back to SF to hosts your parties for Super Bowl 57 or SBLXII or whatever? I don’t think you do, NFL.

Hey, what about LA as your Permanent West Coast Venue?

Just asking…

*A kind of car at the time. The branding had an Apple-ish kid of appeal, at the time. Ironically, SF never even had a local Saturn dealer, but a local ad agency did the branding so we ended up with a free playground.

“When Fixed began faxing its submissions to SFMTA last year, the agency emailed the startup to stop using their fax machine. When Fixed pointed out that it was legal to do so, the agency simply shut off their fax.”

IDK, I was always skeptical of Fixed’s success percentage claims and, IMO, its employees / contractors should never have touched any official ticket placed on any car, but it’s sort of amusing to see how far our SFMTA will go to protect its big cash cow…

What the SFMTA really wants, in its dreams, is a household transit tax, what would cost you about $500 a year, whether you ride the MUNI or not, and then it wouldn’t have to begging for money as much, and then it wouldn’t have to pay so much heed to any random San Francisco Board of Supervisors Member, you know, fucking Supervisors…